The Perfect Time
by MeredithBrody
Summary: Brody seeks Pride out following the hostage situation at the morgue, and they realise it's the perfect time to admit something. (ep tag for 1x19)(Prody)


**So! NOLA is back on our screens. 1x19 was not a massively inspiring episode for the Prody shippers, but I still managed to pull something out of one brief look that Brody gives Pride. So, here is a 1x19 ep tag. As always, spoilers included (though not many of them this time) and please read and review! Thanks  
Shin xx**

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Brody had tried to be as quiet as she could be following Pride down the empty corridor, but with boots like hers and near silence it wasn't exactly the easiest thing she could have done. Clearly Pride heard her coming, and knew she was alone. He leant on the divide above the stairs and stopped moving, allowing her to catch up with him. "Where's LaSalle?"

"I left him with Loretta, CJ and Danny." They had both felt that, in the long run, he would be better served with the boys and Loretta than here. She was the one Pride would open up too, they both knew that. She was already sure that LaSalle had figured out there was something going on with her and Pride, though none of them knew what it was.

"Good. Why are you out here?" He didn't sound angry, or sad, or confused. He just sounded like he wanted to know why she was there, why she had followed him down this empty corridor in the middle of the night.

"I brought you coffee." She knew that was a terrible excuse, but the coffee would go to waste if she didn't offer it, so it was best she stick to her original plan. At the look he gave her she quickly change her mind. "I was worried about you, wanted to check you were OK." That was closer to the truth, not the whole truth, but closer. "Are you OK."

"Yep." He answered, and the speed of his answer made her pause. Reminding her of another situation, reversed. Where he was the one asking, and she was the one clearly not OK, but desperately pretending that she was. She knew how he felt.

"Yes you are." She echoed something he'd said to her all those months ago, not long after she came here full time. When she'd been held in a choke hold by a suspect. That hadn't ended as well as this had. "But I still needed to check."

"Thank you." He looked sideways at her, drinking the coffee she'd brought. It was terrible, awful coffee, but it was warm and it was wet. Right now they were the only things that mattered.

She turned around, leaning her back against the divider and looking at him seriously. There was one thing he'd done today that made her ridiculously proud, and happy, that she knew him. "You know, I was so proud of you when you walked in to the morgue."

"Really? I thought I was being stupid." He smiled and looked down at the coffee, and she couldn't help but reach out and rub his back a little. Maybe he was being stupid, but did that really matter in the long run.

"Well, you were." She decided that admitting he was stupid was the better way to go, otherwise they'd end up arguing about that for the rest of the night, which was absolutely not something that she wanted to do. She just wanted to tell him that he'd done something brave, and she'd been proud of him for it. "But I was proud nonetheless."

"Brody... don't you ever do that." He replied eventually, and she just looked at him seriously. She'd been in that position more than once. The position of deciding that someone or something else mattered more. She hadn't always succeeded, but so far she'd always managed to get herself out of it. She'd do it again too.

"If I have to save you or LaSalle or anyone by giving myself up?" She gave the only people she could think of, at first, to give herself up for. But the truth was that if anyone needed to be protected, and she was in the position to do it, she would. Without even a second thought. "Hell yeah I'll do that. You know that."

He just kept looking at her, and after a few seconds he smile and nodded. Of course she'd give up her life for others, anyone in their profession would. That was why they weren't afraid to go into this life. "Yeah. I do." He chuckled and looked away, and she was reminded of something else she thought about when he'd breached the perimeter earlier.

"You know..." She started, but then blushed and shook her head. Could she tell him the other thing she'd thought? she could, but the embarrassment if he thought she was joking would be high. Or she could play it off as something else, something less embarrassing.

"Speak." Pride said, catching on that she was having second thoughts. Oh at this point there was no reason for her not to just say it. Say that she found him ignoring the authority of the FBI to be an enormous turn on. It would surely be worth it.

"It was kinda hot. You just ignoring the FBI guys to do what you thought was best." She smiled a little, remembering it. It really had been massively hot and she didn't think that he realise quite how attractive she'd found it. It was only then she realise she was actually talking to him. "I mean not that..." All of a sudden there was a finger on her lips and she was stopped from speaking.

"Brody." He said quietly, coming to stand in front of her, and all she could do was swallow and look at him.

"Yeah?" She asked, at least that was what she meant to ask, though she was fairly sure what actually came out of her mouth was a squeak crossed with a growl that didn't actually sound like a word at all.

"Shut up." He got her meaning, and a second later he crushed his lips to hers. She was taken aback, initially, by the ferociousness of the kiss. But if today had taught her anything at all, it was that when an opportunity like this presented itself, you should grab it with both hands. That was clearly what Pride had decided to do.

As the kiss deepened he slipped his hand from her neck to the back of her head, holding her against him. She reciprocated that movement, holding him closer to her. Who would have guessed that this would be how the barriers finally broke down between the two of them. She needed to breathe, to get air into her lungs but that was going to require stepping back, something she didn't want to do. But she needed to

"Well. That was unexpected." She commented as he stepped back. She'd never gotten the idea that he would ever act on their feelings. Maybe it was the emotion of the day, maybe it was how stressed they had all been, but something had made him decide to act on this far past just her words.

"I probably shouldn't have done that. Actually I definitely shouldn't have..." He mumbled to himself, and she knew that, to prove this was both reciprocal and the right thing, Brody looked at him and smiled, placing her fingers on his lips just as he'd done.

"Pride." She started, smiling as she did. This was the perfect time for this.

"Yeah?" It was his turn to make the odd squeak and growl noise, though it sounded far more masculine coming from him. She took it to mean the same as when she had been asked it, and just smiled as she stepped back up to him.

"It's your turn to shut up." She smirked then kissed him just as passionately as he had her a few minutes earlier, she ran her tongue along his lips then dipped it inside as soon as she could. She was holding the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer to her. When they had to break for air this time the pressed their foreheads together this time before stepping back and grinning at the same time. "We should get back." She smiled, happy when he waited for her to fall into step beside him.

Walking back into the hospital to rejoin the rest of their family, their arms wrapped around each other, Brody couldn't think of a way this could have turned out better. Sure, someone had died, but that was the nature of their business. Someone died, someone was found, one family was torn apart. But so far, their family was standing tall. As Sebastian and Patton followed Brody and Pride into Danny's room, Brody was happy to see her family all together. She wrapped an arm around Pride and was happy to feel his around her shoulder, and that was it. Their family. Together. Not quite whole, but most certainly unbroken.


End file.
